Mother Nature

There was a great quote said in the room today. That quote was "(the) markets are like Mother Nature, they do what they want. Sometimes you're on the wrong side of the Tsunami." This quote came after the market rallied earlier this morning after some news from Greece was released. As what often happens on the day trading time frames, when a major announcement is released the markets often make massive impulsive moves do to the public reaction to the event.  Sometimes these moves work in your favor, allowing you to snag some pretty good profits, and other times they stop you out of your positions for losses. Either way, it's part of the risk that you sign up for when deciding to be a day trader. This is no different than deciding to buy a house on the beach. On one hand you get a beautiful view and the benefit of being right near the water. But on the other hand you always have the chance of being flooded or having you're house destroyed by tropical storms or whatnot. The point is that if you know and accept the risk involved before making the decision than there is nothing to get upset about.

With that being said there are a lot of you out there don't like having the chance of fundamental releases interfering with your technical analysis and say that the solution is not to trade when news is approaching. This is a fine approach and I actually take this approach during the major releases, mainly the non farms. My advice would be to make a rule saying that you're not going to trade 5-15mins before and after the release is made. That way you keep yourself out of the markets mess and give everything a chance to settle. You're also going to need a rule for what to do if you already have a position on. The only problem you don't want to run into is doing this for EVERY news event. On someday'd there may be a news event scheduled to be released every hour or half hour. If your rule says stay out of everyone then you've basically chosen to take the day off from trading. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, I just want you to be aware. My advice would be to do your research and determine which events seem to move the market the most and make those the news events that you lock in on.